Monday, February 8, 2016

What you may not know: Week of February 8

The Appleton Common Council has a full slate of committee meetings on the schedule this week, but locally one discussion is likely to overshadow the others:

Municipal Services, Tuesday, 6:30 pmBack in early December I mentioned that the city was working to finalize a design for the reconstruction of the portion of County Highway JJ between Ballard Road and Lightning Drive, and outlined the recommendation the Department of Public Works sent to council for consideration. At that time the Municipal Services Committee was not satisfied with the recommendation or either of the alternative options presented, and opted to direct staff to look at more possibilities.

On Tuesday the committee will again be asked to make a recommendation regarding this project, and the staff recommendation has not changed. The proposal, typically referred to as "Option 2," includes a raised concrete median to be installed between Ballard and Lightning, effectively turning all entrances into properties along that stretch into "right-in, right out" entrances.

As one might imagine, this has created some concerns for business owners along the north side of JJ, who will have less convenient access to their property. Their concerns are a large part of the reason why this item was held and why the city spent an additional $24,000 researching options for this redesign. In the end, however, no new feasible options came forward.

I attended a stakeholders meeting for this project last week and feel comfortable summarizing the arguments against this specific proposal into two points:

A dispute over whether or not the safety issues caused by the current construction are severe enough to warrant major changes, and

A debate about whether or not the safety improvements created by the proposed change should be valued above the interests of the business owners and developers on the north side of the street.

While I recognize the concerns of the property owners on the north side of the street, I think we have a great deal of evidence to suggest that the safety issues we're working to resolve are real and have been exacerbated by development in the area in recent years. And while I recognize the challenges created, I think the opportunity to fix these issues for both drivers and pedestrians and alleviate the possibility for a truly tragic event at this intersection is worth having to deal with some inconvenience.

Keeping you informed on issues that may impact you around the city is one of my primary goals as an alderman. Good governance happens in the open, and I remain committed to raising awareness on the issues coming before us.

7 comments:

I have only been here for a little over 2 years but have never seen any accidents down by the 2 gas stations. My caution to you is that in effect I think you are going to find that you are pushing traffic that wants to turn left onto JJ to come east, causing the same issue "further on down the road". What's the plan when that happens?

Your concerns are somewhat related, so I hope you won't mind if I address them together.

A roundabout was considered as an option at the North HS exit, but was eventually dismissed. One of the reasons was the amount of extra space needed for a roundabout, which would have necessitated the reconfiguration of some neighboring properties.

The plans do call, however, for a roundabout at the corner of JJ and Lightning. This will allow vehicles that wold previously have turned left into these properties to turn around st the roundabout and enter heading in the other direction.

Your concerns are somewhat related, so I hope you won't mind if I address them together.

A roundabout was considered as an option at the North HS exit, but was eventually dismissed. One of the reasons was the amount of extra space needed for a roundabout, which would have necessitated the reconfiguration of some neighboring properties.

The plans do call, however, for a roundabout at the corner of JJ and Lightning. This will allow vehicles that wold previously have turned left into these properties to turn around st the roundabout and enter heading in the other direction.

Thanks, Kyle. Where I lived before there was this same situation with a Farm and Fleet. Everyone had to turn right to leave the parking lot, turn left at the stoplight, cut through a Kwik Trip, just to be able to turn around to get going in the direction many of us needed to go to get home. Lots of people saved a few steps by making an illegal u-turn at the stoplight causing another safety issue. I still side with the businesses on this one.

I like the idea of keeping the school and gas station customers from making turns by crossing a lane of JJ. We've had a green light at JJ and Ballard yet have nearly collided with a car coming out of those side streets by the high school and Kwik Trip--some cars actually crossing both lanes of JJ to move to Kwik Trip from the high school. It is good, proactive thinking to bar crossings at this point; and, I think, it would be safer for pedestrians crossing from the high school to Kwik Trip.